DREAMS AND DELUSIONS. 99 



of a sleeping animal, has given rise to the proverb which 

 urges us to ' Let sleeping dogs lie.' We should never for- 

 get that such a dog may be dreaming at the moment of 

 his sudden arousing, and that while he may be revelling in 

 imaginary joys, the arbitrary cessation of which will give 

 rise to keen surprise and disappointment, he may equally be 

 an actor in some tragic drama, involving danger to his 

 own life, in which case the sudden shock of his awakening 

 may naturally appear as but .part of the fancied reality, and 

 he may show his belief in the unreality by identifying those 

 who actually , arouse him, with the imaginary enemies to 

 whom he attributes all his pains or pangs. 



In short, though roused from sleep, in one sense, the 

 animal has not yet had time to emerge from its dreaming 

 state; it still confounds unreality with reality, imaginary 

 with actual enemies or disturbers it has not been allowed to 

 use its senses and its judgment in the correction of its dream- 

 beliefs ; and man must be responsible for the consciences, in 

 action, resulting from the abnormal mental condition of the 

 disturbed animal. 



If sudden awakening from sleep is dangerous at all 

 times, and under ordinary circumstances, it is specially so 

 when the animal is the subject of disease mental or 

 bodily considering the frequency with which ferocity is one 

 of the psychical results of disease, one of the most common 

 forms of changed character, or disposition, it produces. 

 Hence the obvious impropriety of interfering with the sleep 

 of animals affected with such disorders as mania or rabies. 

 Interference may, among other commoner results, develop 

 on the moment dangerous delusions, attaching themselves 

 to the human awakener, or to the nearest person, animal, or 

 thing. 



Hitherto we have been speaking of the dreams of the 

 sleeping state. But dreams also occur in the waking con- 

 dition in the dog (Pierquin). What, however, is sometimes 

 spoken of as day-dreaming or reverie in the dog, or other 

 animals, is more probably or usually wrapt attention, self- 

 absorption, absence of mind, or allied mental conditions. 



But the same kind of delusions occur by day as by night, 



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